Stephen Leather - The Long shot

“Why don’t we just put Carlos on the Ten Most Wanted?” Sanger asked.

Howard realised that Mulholland had been right, that Sanger would rather frighten Carlos off than try to apprehend him. Mulholland stood up, walked around his chair and rested his forearms on it. “Bob, at this stage we think we have a real opportunity to capture the entire cell: Carlos, Hennessy, Bailey and the three snipers. It’s unlikely that they know that we have identified them, or that we know they are on the East Coast. If we play this just right, we could bag them all.”

“But from what you told me about the Lou Schoelen telephone call we only have two weeks. By the way, Cole, the Star Trek lead was good work.”

Howard smiled at the recognition. He looked over at Mulholland and nodded almost imperceptibly, acknowledging that the FBI chief had kept his word — he had obviously told Sanger that it was Howard who had broken the case open.

“Schoelen said that it should all be over within the next two weeks,” agreed Mulholland.

Sanger sniffed as if he had the beginnings of a cold. He took off his spectacles and began to slowly polish them with a red handkerchief. “So put Carlos and the snipers on the Most Wanted list and get all your agents looking for them,” he said.

“We don’t have the time, and if we mobilise the FBI in total, we’ll have to go public,” said Mulholland. “It means posters up on Post Office walls, police precincts, the whole bit. If we do it through television, we can be economical with the truth.”

Sanger nodded. “So we let the great American public do the FBI’s job, is that it, Ed?” He smiled, looking over the top of his spectacles.

Mulholland smiled back. Howard had the feeling that the two men had a history together and that they took a perverse pleasure in winding each other up.

“We know it’s going to happen within the next two weeks, and we know it’s going to be on the East Coast,” said Mulholland. “Your men must be doing the rounds, checking the President’s itinerary and running down the watch list and the quarterlies. Why not give your men photographs of Carlos and the rest, and get them to show them around as part of your security sweep? Your agents are going to be checking all the hotels anyway, they can kill two birds with one stone. We can use FBI manpower to try car-rental companies, stores, filling stations, and the rest. But we confine the search to only those places on the President’s itinerary.”

There was a knock on the door and Sanger’s secretary showed in Andy Kim and a young man with a military haircut and pock-marked skin. Kim saw Howard and went over to shake his hand while Sanger introduced the other man as Rick Palmer, a Secret Service programmer.

“Rick, could you give us a briefing on the progress you’ve made so far in identifying possible venues for the assassination?”

Howard saw Kim visibly stiffen and he knew that the news was not good. He gave the Oriental an encouraging smile. Palmer scratched his right cheek as if the scars there were itching. “We’re up to the end of August, and so far nothing has matched, not in the ninety percentile which is the level we agreed on,” he said. “About half a dozen have come close, one was as close as the eighty-six percentile.”

Sanger didn’t appear surprised by the news and Howard had the feeling that he had asked for the situation report for Mulholland’s benefit rather than his own. “Are any of the half-dozen on the East Coast?” Sanger asked.

Palmer looked across at Kim, who pushed his hornrimmed glasses higher up his nose and cleared his throat nervously. “One is in Boston, and another, I believe, is in Philadelphia,” he said, his voice shaking.

Sanger nodded. “Cole has two pieces of information which may help you,” he said. “First, we now have reason to believe that the assassination is being planned for sometime in the next two weeks.” Andy Kim’s face fell as he realised that if that was the case, his model must have missed the venue already, or there was a fault in his programming. Deep creases formed in his forehead and he looked as if he was in pain. “Secondly, the snipers appear to be in the Baltimore-Washington area, at least for the moment. In view of the time-frame, I don’t think it likely they will be moving too far. I think we should go back to the start and recheck all the venues in the east of the country for the upcoming fourteen days.”

Palmer was also frowning, and he looked at Kim, who shrugged. “We’ll start right away,” said Palmer.

“I wonder if maybe we should be looking at the possibility of other targets,” said Howard.

“For instance?” said Sanger.

“The Senate, and the Pentagon. I can think of several high-ranking military officers who would be high up on an Iraqi hit list. I also have a list of visiting VIPs from overseas.”

Palmer and Kim both expressed surprise at the mention of an Iraqi hit list and Howard realised that neither of the computer experts was aware of how far the investigation had gone. They were still treating it as a mathematical problem rather than a criminal investigation.

Mulholland and O’Donnell were nodding in agreement and Sanger looked from one to the other as if gauging their reaction. “Widening the search will take more time, more people,” he said. “I suggest we concentrate on the Presidential venues for the next two days, if they still come up negative, we run the program through venues where the President isn’t expected but where we know other possible targets will be. Ed, when do you expect the pictures of Bailey and Hennessy to go public?”

“Two days,” said Mulholland. “Tuesday evening. If my producer comes through.”

“He’d better,” said Sanger. “The following week could be too late.” He pushed his handkerchief back into his trouser pocket and looked at his watch. “Gentlemen, it’s now almost three o’clock. I’ve had rooms arranged for you at a hotel nearby. There are cars waiting to take you, and they’ll collect you first thing so we can make an early start.” The door opened and his secretary appeared. Howard wondered if Sanger had pressed a concealed button because he hadn’t touched his desk intercom or telephone. A young man stood behind the secretary, carrying a Polaroid camera. Sanger explained that their photographs would have to be taken for their White House passes, so one by one they stood with backs to the wall as the camera flashed and whirred.

When they’d finished, Sanger asked his secretary to show them to the cars. “And make sure their luggage hasn’t gone astray,” he added. He looked at Mulholland and shrugged. “Sometimes it happens,” he explained.

Joker’s internal alarm clock woke him at five o’clock in the morning. His mouth tasted sour and there was a thick coating of something unsavoury on his tongue. He swallowed, but his throat was so dry he almost gagged, so he lurched to the tiny bathroom and drank from the tap. He showered and wrapped a thin towel around his waist, then went back into the bedroom and bent down by the side of the bed. From under the mattress he pulled out the gun and silencer. The SIG-Sauer P228 appeared to be brand new; there was scarcely a mark on it and the silencer had never been used. There were thirteen cartridges in the clip, which Joker recognised as 147 gram Hornady Custom XTP full metal jacketed hollow point loads. Joker was no stranger to the gun or the ammunition. He knew that XTP stood for ‘extreme terminal performance’. The bullets had no exposed lead at the nose and the hollow points meant the bullets would mushroom out on impact, increasing their penetration and the amount of damage they did. They were real man-stoppers and because they were big bullets they came out of the gun at a relatively slow 978 feet per second. Joker had smiled at the number of bullets the clip held. He knew that another SIG-Sauer model, the P226, actually held even more bullets — sixteen — but even thirteen was too many. If he ever got himself into a situation where that number of bullets were necessary, he’d be dead. The ‘spray and pray’ method beloved of the paintball amateur warriors didn’t work in real life. It was drilled into the SAS recruits from their first day in the Killing House — two shots per target, both to the chest. If you had time then maybe a third in the head to make one hundred per cent sure, but in a hostage situation with handguns it was two — bang-bang and then onto the next target. And if you were up against more than two targets you’d made a big mistake because no matter how many bullets you had in the clip you were outgunned. Only an amateur firing almost at random would need thirteen rounds. And when it came to killing, Joker was not an amateur.